Linking Agenda Setting to Coordination Structures: Bureaucratic Politics inside the European Commission

Abstract

This article provides a detailed study of how bureaucratic politics in the European Commission can systematically affect the substance of the legislative agenda that makes up European integration. Based on an encompassing description of the bureaucratic policy-formulation process within the Commission, it shows how the Commission’s different elements play off against each other and thereby systematically advantage the lead department and the Secretariat-General. Empirical case studies from a sample of 48 policy formulation processes in the Commission during 1999–2008 illustrate how these structural advantages actually change the political substance of policy proposals. Against additional evidence on an uneven distribution of procedural advantages across the Commission departments, it concludes that bureaucratic politics in the Commission may account for systematic biases on the European Union’s legislative agenda.

Keywords:

• European Commission
• bureaucratic politics
• lead DG
• Secretariat-General

Acknowledgements

This article is part of the results of a broader, multiannual and collaborative research project on “Position formation in the EU Commission” at the Social Science Research Centre in Berlin (WZB). We gratefully acknowledge funding from the Volkswagen Foundation and thank Jacob Düringer for research assistance. John Peterson as well as the participants of the 5th ECPR General Conference 2009 and the 2010 annual meeting of the DVPW section on “Political Science and Public Administration” have provided valuable advice on earlier versions of this article. We further thank the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments.

Notes

1. In order to preserve anonymity the interviews are only referred to by their running number, e.g., COM1, COM2 or EXP1, EXP2, etc.

2. Furthermore, one or more Commissioners are entitled to take decisions in the name of the whole College via the – albeit rarely used – empowerment procedure or by the subdivision of the College into thematic groups (Commission of the European Communities 2005, Annex, Art. 18).

3. However, the Strategic Planning and Programming (SPP) cycle introduced with the Kinnock reforms is managed by the SG (see especially Commission of the European Communities 2000b, 13–17). As part of the SPP, the Commission’s annual Legislative Work Programmes (CLWP) define the concrete initiatives to be launched including the decision of the respective DG to be lead.

4. http://ec.europa.eu/prelex/rech_simple.cfm?CL=en (last accessed 9 January 2012).